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Friday, April 20, 2007
Bush to Keynote Jamestown 400th Anniversary
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| JAMESTOWN, VA. - A replica of the Godspeed, one of the three merchant ships that brought the original English settlers to Jamestown in 1607, plies the James River waters under full sail. President Bush will visit Jamestown May 13 to mark the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in America. Cox photo by Rick McKay. |
The president’s address will cap-off three days of official commemorative events at the site where 104 English men and boys settled on May 14th, 1607, naming their fort for King James I of England.
The current British Monarch, Queen Elizabeth, and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, plan to visit Jamestown on May 3 and 4 to commemorate four centuries of trans-Atlantic relations between the English and the Americans. Later she is to visit Bush in Washington, though the two have no plans to be together at Jamestown. The Jamestown settlement marked the first sustained clash between English settlers and Native Americans and was the beginning of British empire in America. Later, in 1619, 20 elected burgesses met in Jamestown as the first representative government in America. Three weeks after that, the first Africans to arrive in English America in chains came up the James River near Jamestown, the seeds of American democracy and American slavery having been sown side by side along the banks of the river.
Commemoration activities have been in the planning for years. Organizers have been careful not to label the event a celebration, in deference to the sensitivities of Native Americans, African-Americans and others.
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Gill Leads Edwards, Performers In “Amazing Grace” Tribute To Virginia Tech Shooting Victims
Vince Gill is apolitical. But when a John Edwards rally turned into a vigil for the students killed at Virginia Tech on Monday, the country superstar rushed from a local golf course to join the Democratic presidential candidate and other Nashville stars on the stage of the historic Ryman Auditorium.
Gill did not even stop to change clothes. “Guess where I was?” he asked the audience as he walked out on stage, wearing plaid shorts and a golf cap. “Excuse my appearance, but my heart is in the right place,” he said.
The event at the Ryman, which also included singers Rodney Crowell, Del McCoury, Sam Bush and Chely Wright and actress Ashley Judd, ended with Gill leading the audience, his fellow performers and Edwards in singing “Amazing Grace.”
Impressionist Bearing Gifts
Impressionist Rich Little, the talent for this weekend’s White House Correspondents Association dinner, dropped by the Oval Office for a little face time with President Bush today.
Little brought gifts: Charcoal drawings he had done of the president and first lady.
Then Little joked that he forgot to bring the one he had done of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.
Said Bush, according to Little: “Destroy it.”
Sounds like an executive order.
PS: Little says he’ll impersonate a variety of politicos during the dinner, including six presidents and John McCain.
And he acknowledges that he looks at elections through an impressionist’s eye. Said he dreads the thought of President Hillary Clinton. Nothing personal, just a bit difficult for a male impersonator to do.
Not sure why that would be. Little probably has a closetful of pant suits.
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